


The Value of Money

by euchariis



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Case Fic, F/F, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Paternoster Gang, Revenge, more money more problems and all that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-01-25 17:21:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18579064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euchariis/pseuds/euchariis
Summary: Vastra fancied a life of luxury and built it. The price, she learns, has yet to be paid.





	1. this heartbreak just lifting its head

**Author's Note:**

> chapter title is from a charlie smith poem 
> 
> this is an attempt at a casefic which i have been sporadically adding to for quite a while now
> 
> new chapters will be slow but all feedback is appreciated and encouraged

They couldn’t bring themselves to speak. Words hung in the air like smog, while Vastra shook with rage. Her senses scrambled, she stifled a sob and tried to make sense of the scene before her. 

‘We must pursue the boy’s kidnappers immediately. Permission to employ laser – ’ 

‘They’ll be long gone.’ Vastra shook her head slightly and distractedly. 

Just this once, Strax’s disregard for delicacy in situations which required it was a blessing. This was a crime scene, this was a kidnap, and as far as both were concerned this was an act of war. Vastra, however, knew better than to join Strax in his impulsiveness, despite the anger aching in her every muscle. She flicked her tongue out repeatedly. Picking the taste of tobacco, linseed oil, oak, and shellac out from the familiar scents of home felt like picking shrapnel out of a wound. The traces they’d left were fading, and with them the chance of finding whoever was responsible for this. 

‘They left over an hour ago.’ The overturned chaise lounge, broken ornaments and torn books which littered the library rug made it unnecessary for Vastra to state that there had been a struggle. She had tasted Jenny’s fear, sharp like wine left open, minutes before the pair had made it to the room. There was little else that could produce such a profound bodily reaction in her. 

Age and experience had imbued her with the knowledge that rage acted on in haste rarely produced the most satisfying results. Until everyone who had conspired to take Jenny from her lay dead at her feet, Vastra would not be satisfied. 

‘How do you suggest we proceed, Madame?’ Strax looked expectantly at Vastra, who wondered if it was wishful thinking that she saw her own desperation reflected in the Sontaran’s deep-set eyes. 

‘As we would any other case.’ Vastra said coldly, between gritted teeth. 

‘Permission to express my disapproval of your suggested strategy?’ Strax barked.

‘If you must.’ 

‘I disapprove of your suggested strategy. Your mate has been abducted and you do nothing but – ’

‘They will bleed for this, I assure you.’ 

Her reply had satisfied Strax and subdued the vengeful mist clouding her mind. Stepping forward, surrounding herself with the evidence of her love’s absence, she scanned the room for anything that would not have been present before the fracas. Notably, nothing outside the library seemed amiss, as if they had been welcomed in and brought here by Jenny herself. But why – 

Conjecture, Vastra reminded herself, was useless before taking account of the evidence. 

A broken vase. A broken tea set. A damp stain beneath it. A blanket tossed to the side of the mess. Wax pooled beneath a candle, thankfully extinguished by the fall. Faint footprints, which Vastra resolved to examine later. No blood. Vastra thanked every goddess she could remember. 

Blinking hard, Vastra pushed down the sense of despair at the initial lack of leads. She surveyed the room again, as Strax marched off to retrieve the technology he deemed appropriate. A clock, unbroken. One of Jenny’s hairpins peeking out from beneath a book. A piece of paper different in both colour and size from the other scattered, torn pages. It lay atop comparatively yellowed sheets and shards of shattered vase. 

Vastra picked it up, feeling heavy with the knowledge that she had failed the woman she loved. 

The note was written in nice script on nice paper. It was addressed, smarmily no doubt, to The Great Detective. The short message contained an assurance that Jenny – ‘your whore’ – was safe ‘for the time being’. This was followed by a demand for ‘1000 pounds in cash’, to be deposited at a derelict address in Camberwell within three days – ‘a token of your gratitude for her safe return’. 

Ransom, how hideous. Vastra had made enough enemies to fill a hundred penny dreadfuls, and that was only counting human adversaries. Clearly the clothes, the carriages, the house and the admittedly frequent deliveries it received hadn’t gone unnoticed by those who wanted to get rich or to get even. 

Put bluntly – because this was not the time to feign decorum – she could pay. The issue lay elsewhere. As well as she knew Jenny, she wondered if, should she pay the ransom, her love would see it as a valuation, a quantification of her worth. She briefly considered paying before slaughtering those responsible anyway. A convoluted, conciliatory means to the same end. 

No, Vastra concluded, that was not how this would play out. Three days was enough, it had to be enough. 

‘I have detected traces of oil, tobacco smoke and oak dust.’ Strax’s voice cut through her thoughts. 

‘As did I, upon entering the house. That description could incriminate half of London.’ Vastra’s patience was thin. Ostensibly scared of very little, Vastra’s own emotions were worrying her. The whirlpool of anguish and fear and the fevered, erratic need to do something, anything, to find Jenny was threatening to engulf her. 

She knelt, shakily, to examine the dirt of the footprints. More shellac, more linseed, more oak, and a heavy odour of clay, but oddly tinged with iron or salt or –

Then she remembered. They were to have a new table delivered today, for the library. French polish atop deep oak. Except, of course, Vastra could see no table, but plenty to suggest that her love's assailants had been invited in. Using a claw, she scraped a sample of the clay into a shard of china, setting it aside should it be useful again. 

‘Madame, could this be a lead?’ 

‘The only one we’ve got. Arm yourself, we are going to Liberty.’


	2. give the devil his due

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game is afoot: Vastra regrets having to play and Jenny learns the rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> exams are making free time, let alone time to write, scarce and i apologise for the really slow update
> 
> this is just getting the ball rolling, i've never written this kind of thing before and all constructive criticism is welcome

A few years prior, Vastra had commented – much to the dismay of her then-client – that ransoming was inelegant. Jenny had later remarked that the detective’s internal hierarchy of crimes, from the truly repugnant to the clever but classless to the undeniably impressive, was best kept to herself. 

In her experience, some kidnappers aimed to keep their captives alive for any number of deplorable reasons. Many had shorter-term plans for those they took. A sickness turned in her stomach at the thought of the latter. In her experience, those taken were the children or lovers or wives of wealthy men, powerful men. They became a pawn in something much grander than themselves; Vastra had always been so focused on the game itself that the identity of the captives became irrelevant, tangential. 

Far from a game, Vastra thought, this was so far from a game. Outrunning and outwitting the villains she apprehended was fun, so much so that getting paid to do it sometimes seemed indulgent. Every muscle in her body was coiled tight, and the only thought that could quell her rage was that of ripping those standing between her and Jenny limb from limb. 

On the journey to Soho, Vastra clawed at her palms and considered asking the Doctor for help. Never more so than now, with Jenny gone and with so much to be done to find her, was Vastra willing to ponder the potential limits of her abilities. Every train of thought ran red and she needed something to stem the flow of violent, intrusive thoughts. 

The Doctor would want her not to act on this stirring, to remember the last time everything that mattered to her was taken. Incapable and unwilling to even consider a peaceable course of action, Vastra steeled herself against the prospect of the Doctor’s interference. Anything short of slaughter would made Jenny an easy target in the future, and would make their organisation look weak, pliable. These were consequences they would no doubt face long after the Doctor had left. 

She briefly bowed her head into her cupped hands, recalling the library. The cacophony of polish had been a blessedly obvious start. Narrow it down, Vastra chided herself. The clay, perhaps, was what would bring her closer. 

So much of the soil beneath London was clay – a fact Vastra was sure Jenny would tease her for having to hand, were she still here. Sentimentality would not save Jenny or bring Vastra any comfort; this did not stop Vastra gritting her teeth to curtail a small yelp of pain at the thought of Jenny alone, unarmed, possibly hurt. She regretted taking Strax with her to what was a routine and unimportant brief at the Yard. She regretted not reminding Jenny that she loved her that morning. 

******* 

With the carriage waiting on Argyll Street, Vastra marched into the staff quarters of the department store. She made a beeline for a closed office door marked ‘Deliveries’, silently thanking the goddesses for the lack of obstruction thus far. 

The man inside the office was startled and at first reluctant to give details of the men who were due to deliver the table. A small bag of guineas, chucked unceremoniously across the desk, softened his stance considerably. There were two delivery men and a driver, unlikely themselves to be the orchestrators but nonetheless worth finding. 

‘Names, addresses?’ Vastra had brandished the phrase ‘with Scotland Yard’ enough at this point, and was relying on sheer intimidation, or the second bag of coins she had stashed in her cloak. 

‘Madame, that is decided at the loading dock, I don’t see the rota day-to-day.’ 

‘Strax.’ 

‘Yes, ma’am?’ 

‘What readings did you take earlier, at the house?’ The man’s presence had become quite secondary. 

‘Atmospheric readings, life signs, non-Earth technology, explosive device detection – the standard sweep.’ 

‘The atmospheric readings, was there anything to them?’ 

Strax answered by handing the scanner to the Silurian, silent with uncertainty.

“May I ask what is going on?’ The man sounded more and more timid each time he spoke.

‘No,’ came the simultaneous reply. 

‘Nothing new. Ah, except… faint traces of iron salts.’ She remembered now, and combined with the clay trodden into the rug, it could only be one district. 

‘At the very least, you must be able to access your own employees’ addresses?’ 

‘They’re on file, somewhere.’ 

Useless apes, Vastra thought, her eye roll somehow detectable through the veil. 

‘Give me the addresses of every delivery worker who lives in or near Kilburn’

‘Kilburn? That’s Bernie, his lad goes to the same school as –’ 

‘Would you be so kind as to give me his full name and address?’ Vastra had learned not to fumble these things at the last minute by being brusque. She even clenched her throat to humanise her voice, to soften the sibilant sounds. 

‘Bernie Essell.’ The man said, before remembering that ‘on file somewhere’ meant in a draw by his right thigh. 

‘And the address, sir?’ 

‘Of course, Madame, if you allow me to…’ He trailed off, instead searching the drawer, hands shaking ever so slightly. 

Vastra checked her pocket watch discreetly. Strax grunted, shifting slightly where he stood.

’37 Greville Road, Kilburn,’ the man offered, eventually, ‘I remember him mentioning that he drinks at the Victoria Tavern. Not gone and got himself into trouble, has he?’

‘Not yet.’ Vastra nearly snarled. His real trouble, she had decided, would begin tonight. 

*******

Having resolved to save her energy and cease trying to scream and fight and scheme, Jenny sat slumped against the far corner of the cellar. How much of this decision was strategy and how much was hunger, she could not tell. 

Jenny knew hunger well. As one of eight, brought up on the border of Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, food was scarce and money was scarcer. When she was fifteen and made homeless, wasting away in the slums of the Nichol, the searing pain of starvation in the pit of her stomach led her to pickpocketing, and so nearly to selling herself that she could barely remember it without welling up. 

But she feared forgetting, sometimes. After her third pudding in a week, or after trying one of the exotic fruits her Madame would buy for her, the guilt set in. Why should she have this, when the people she lived and begged and stole with were dying? Vastra told her it was self-defeating, to curtail one’s own enjoyment in punishment for something one cannot change. Whether this was to help Jenny or reassure herself, she remained sceptical. 

A distant clatter roused her. The rope around her wrists was tight and was beginning to rub her skin raw, but she tugged nonetheless in delirious desperation. The horrendous substance they had pressed to her nose to sedate her had left her feeling slightly fuzzy, maybe she was imagining the sounds, she hoped. 

Footsteps, and then the unmistakable scrape and heavy click of a key turning in a lock. Jenny froze. 

The door swung open and the man who descended was tall and lean. He wore a smart charcoal lounge suit, had thick blonde hair beneath a top hat, and was of an indeterminable age between, if Jenny had to guess, 35 and 50. A toff, Jenny thought, locking eyes with him defiantly. 

‘I hope you’ve been made to feel at home, Miss Flint.’ A plummy voice, of course. 

‘Why am I here?’ Her throat was raw from screaming and dehydration. 

‘Remarkable, really, how feral a roughing-up and few hours alone in here can make a person. But then again, knowing where you’re from, maybe it would have taken less.’ 

‘That’s not an answer. And if you want to see feral, well – ’

‘Don’t threaten me with your exotic pet. She’s not here, and she won’t be any time soon.’ He stooped down just beyond the reach of the rope restraining her. Not even the deep, polished rumble of his voice could mask its venom. 

‘Miss Flint, you and your Madame have set up home at the expense of myself and my associates. You are here as insurance that we are repaid in full.’ 

It dawned on Jenny, instantly and with a clarity that cut through her dizziness. 

‘Which bank do you – work for?’ Jenny’s question was halting and her voice meek. 

‘Work for?’ Mr Soames scoffed, genuinely amused, ‘the word you’re looking for is ‘own’, you upstart harlot. You’re quick, I will grant you that. Quick and pretty. Let’s hope your Madame remembers quite how pretty and pays accordingly.’


	3. what you are given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything goes horribly to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you SO MUCH for the kudos and comments - i really appreciate all feedback and i look forward to continuing this story! 
> 
> this chapter is gruesome, please be warned

‘But how can we be sure, ma’am?’ As ever, Strax’s tone made questions sound like commands. 

‘Chalybeate waters are unique to Kilburn.’ Vastra punctuated her answer with the shrill swipe of metal against itself. This response lacked the explanatory depth that Strax had hoped for, but the fervour with which Vastra was sharpening the blade told him not to demand anything further. 

‘We get the information as quickly as possible, by whatever means the situation renders necessary.’ 

‘You mean to say that we can employ… violence?’ Strax’s smile was as macabre as it was reassuring. 

‘Should he resist our inquiries, most certainly. Jenny’s life could depend on our actions tonight.’ The heavy churn of guilt and sadness in her abdomen barely showed in her expression. Without Jenny here, and with Strax's encouragement guaranteed, Vastra pondered just how little would come between her and this human’s life. 

‘He dies after we know where Jenny is and who has taken her – understood?’ A reminder to herself just as much as the Sontaran. 

‘Affirmative, ma’am!’ Strax’s excitement was palpable, and Vastra was unsure of what to make of it. 

The pair departed in near-silence. Alone in the carriage, Vastra’s thoughts ran riot. The restless terror and the familiar hunger to feel flesh tear between teeth reminded her of herself, years ago. Alone again, without Jenny, the world around her felt just as repugnant and wrong and the day she had resurfaced and the weight of her losses felt somehow less bearable. After a number of years, those she had killed rarely haunted her, and Mr Essell would be no exception. 

*******

Bernie Essell had never known love like that he felt for his children. Surprisingly bonny for babies born to hungry, working people like him and his wife, their bright orange hair and flushed, freckled cheeks imbued him with a happiness nothing else could. Anything and everything, that’s what he promised he would do to feed and clothe them, to keep them from the workhouse and the factories. A difficult promise to keep, especially when seven pounds was placed before him at work, with the condition that he facilitate a ‘one-off debt enforcement’. The discovery that this was, in fact, a kidnapping came far too late for him to resile from the task. His job had made him sturdy and strong, and had given the gentleman’s thugs the in they needed. He told himself that they would have taken her either way, and after a few pints he believed himself. 

Whilst usually nonplussed by the delights of the Victoria Tavern, Bernie had increased his weekly drink to every night. He told himself it wasn’t to forget the way the girl had thrashed and screamed and cried. When he was here, with his friends, he didn’t ask himself what they needed a maid for, anyway, or whether she meant it when she said he’d bleed for this. Of course, the beer failed to wash away the guilt, and tonight proved no exception. 

At half eleven, he said a murmured farewell to his drinking companions and began the short walk home, concentrating on staying upright as he navigated the damp cobbled road. Slipping and burping as he turned a corner, he was too distracted by his own drunkenness to notice the footsteps nearing behind him. So, when a large hand yanked him from his path and pushed him against the alley wall, his reaction was a few seconds delayed. 

The smell of alcohol was thick in his warm breath, but his scent was recognisably among those found in the library. Vastra shivered with anticipation. 

‘Scream and I’ll take your tongue.’ She paused to ensure that his writhing and shouting ceased. 

‘Who the fuck –’ Bernie’s senses were too scrambled to offer anything more. His limbs felt sluggish, but this did not deter him from kicking and swinging for the veiled woman before him. Upon looking down at what was holding him so firmly in place, he gasped, which turned into vomit. 

‘Disgusting human, you will submit to questioning or meet a brutal and prolonged death.’

Vastra raised her knife to his throat and Bernie fell still and silent. 

‘Thank you, Strax.’ Impatience dripped from her words. ‘The girl you took. Where is she?’ 

‘I don’t know what you’re talking –’ Vastra deftly glided the blade’s point around, across the juncture of neck and shoulder, leaving a thin, stinging cut. Bernie cried out, trembling and struggling to free his hands. 

‘You do, you definitely know what I am talking about. Unless you want me to keep cutting I suggest you stop struggling and talk.’

‘Fine. Please, don’t hurt me. I have children and I –’

‘You took someone I love; I am not at all inclined to consider who will mourn you.’ That did it. 

‘No! Please, look I only did it because they paid me, and I didn’t know they were taking, well, a person, until it was too late to leave. They knew where my family live.’

‘So do I. Number 37. Now, where is she? I don’t have all night.’ Vastra prodded the dip of his shoulder with the sword’s point, for emphasis.

‘They took her out outside of London, to a big house.’

‘If there was ever a time for specificity, this is it, Mr Essell.’ 

‘It began with a C, or maybe an E.’ Strax saw an opportunity to shake him and took it, making the man cry out in pain.

Vastra removed her veil, automatically resorting to her telepathic capabilities. His horror was gone within seconds. Vastra stared intently at him, silently prompting him to remember all writing, all whispered conversations which might relate to Jenny’s whereabouts. 

‘Chainees Manor.’ He blurted out while the rest of his face remained alarmingly still. 

‘Excellent.’ Vastra could infer how it was properly spelled. ‘And the man who paid you?’

‘I… I don’t remember his name but I remember what he looked like.’ 

Jenny had always expressed deep discomfort with the prospect of Vastra joining minds with anyone but her. An exception, Vastra hoped, would be granted in the present circumstances. Forcing a pathway into Bernie’s mind was easy, as was committing to memory the face of the strange man against the backdrop of a loading bay. The man was incongruously well-dressed, boasting a slicked-back bout of blonde hair and a haughty expression. She didn’t recognise him, and was unsure of whether or not this was a relief. 

‘Is there anything else?’ Vastra asked across the bridge connecting her mind to his. 

‘Please.’ Her desperation was palpable, and spilled into Bernie’s mind like water just off the stove. He whined involuntarily at the overwhelming onslaught of emotion, as his mind flickered between the faces of his children and Jenny, bruised and pleading with him to let her go. 

Vastra violently ripped her mind from his, the picture of Jenny seared behind her eyelids as if she had just looked away from the sun. Even the gush of warm, wet blood that spilled from his neck as she cut through to bone couldn’t ground her. Elsewhere, Strax walked to the entrance to the narrow street to stand guard. Vastra barely noticed. 

He had been easy to kill because humans are easy to kill. Jenny was no exception and the sight of her in such distress had made Vastra feel nauseous. From this information, several potential courses of action crystallised in Vastra’s mind. All of which, she reminded herself, would require energy, and thus would have to wait for an hour or so.


	4. a hard soul to save

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vastra catches up and Jenny passes out. Strax has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY for the hiatus, I've had a full-on job and some school stuff to work on - this fic has not been abandoned but is certainly taking longer to write than anticipated.   
> Thank you so much for all of the comments! Any and all feedback is appreciated, this chapter may have typos/bad syntax so please let me know!

When they were still destitute and bumbling through the beginnings of their partnership above a gin palace in Cheapside, Vastra had promised her luxury. Jenny had never seen anything like the money they began to accrue beneath the flat’s floorboards: ingots and coins and bricks of notes tied with tatty shoelaces. The means by which they acquired this wealth was rarely spoken of; they left that behind, along with the fear that they should ever want for anything again. Their months as bank robbers had given Jenny her first taste of adventure. The adrenaline rush was addictive and their heists ruthlessly efficient; they soon had enough to advance their plans. 

13 Paternoster Row had rinsed the lion’s share of the fortune clean and given them a new start, across the city from the slums of Jenny’s childhood. On cases concerning robberies, a knowing smile or smirk into the middle distance let Jenny know that Vastra, too, saw the irony of it all. 

That adrenaline rush never ceased, and the pair found new ways to have fun. Helping Scotland Yard, of course, brought both the mundane and the ridiculous before them. It was, however, their excitement at each other that surpassed all else. The excitement of constancy was not lost on either, both so used to existing in their own heads. 

Reliving and reminiscing as she drifted in and out of sleep, Jenny was confronted by the thought that this might be where it ends, for her at least. She had grown so accustomed to immediate backup and last-minute intervention that the fact there had been no screams from the guards or triumphant kick of the door scared her. Jenny worried that she had been hidden too well, hadn’t fought hard enough, hadn’t told Vastra how deeply and dearly she loved her as often as she would have liked. 

******* 

The business of the following day frustrated Vastra only slightly less than it did Strax. The name of Chenies Manor House was familiar to her, but not that of its owner. Vastra arrived at the land registry office alone and fevered with panic. The name Scotland Yard, or indeed her own name, rarely failed to gain her access to records and rooms, but today there could be no such presumptions. 

The man that greeted her was portly and grey – he blended into the chair beneath him and expressed little acknowledgement of her arrival. Vastra considered his ambivalence to be a blessing. With remarkably few words exchanged, he directed her to the second floor of 34 Lincoln's Inn Fields and returned to his post at the foyer desk. 

Once out of sight, Vastra broke into a sprint, thankful for the empty corridors and oblivious readers huddled in side-rooms. Making swift sense of the establishment’s archival system, she let out a breath she did not know she was holding as she removed the requisite book from its shelf. 

Vastra took in the residence’s prior owners as she scanned the list, claw sliding past long-dead Earls and Dukes until it halted at the final name: Mr William Soames. 

Of course. 

Paralysed with the realisation and furious at herself for not reaching this conclusion earlier, Vastra pivoted. All she remembered of the journey home was that she kept the book stowed under her cloak, too distracted to think to return it. 

Strax greeted her at the door to 13 Paternoster Row, once again unsure of what to say. Consulting paper records as a military manoeuvre was not held in high regard by the Sontaran, although he knew not to express his consternation again. 

Releasing the claw-marked leather book onto the carpet and scarcely acknowledging her companion, Vastra retreated to the upper cellar, craving what little comfort its darkness and low ceilings could bring. 

Useless, how useless she felt: the Great Detective the last to realise the game afoot. The whole house felt stagnant without Jenny, and the faint smell of her love lingering in the cellar caused Vastra to whimper. Memories danced around her as her head spun from exhaustion, thoughts of training with Jenny in this same room, of Jenny laughing and flirting and effortlessly impressing with every movement. Remembering Jenny safe and happy, here in her home, hurt in a differently to the searing pain caused by Essell’s memories. There was still time, Vastra reminded herself, cupping her forehead in her two hands. 

As it had before her bed became Jenny’s, sleep evaded Vastra this night as it had the last. Strax also sat awake, bizarrely preferring to do so beside the coal shed. He considered which explosive substances would be best suited to a rescue mission. Vastra bifurcated the issues before her: time and numbers. This would be the second day following the abduction. Someone would have to go to the rendezvous point, she acknowledged as she distractedly wandered to the kitchen, the house hanging eerily still around her. 

Drinking water directly from the tap, Vastra realised quite how much she had needed it. Closing her eyes, she considered that, were she to pay at the demanded time, Jenny would become expendable to her captors. Equally, an assault on the Manor would surely be more anticipated once the payment had been received. The second issue reared its head, once again, the numbers required to successfully infiltrate a property of that scale would – 

“Ma’am. I suggest you sleep, it sharpens the mind and…” Strax tailed off upon Vastra hissing and spinning, impossibly quickly, to face him. Her teeth were bared and she looked equal parts furious and terrified. 

“Yes,” Vastra barked hoarsely, “I am aware of that. How can I sleep when Jenny is still gone and I cannot see how to… how to, get her back safely.” She had not intended to allow such emotion into her response. Strax, naturally, overlooked it. 

“Do you know who has taken her?” The simplicity of Strax’s approach was welcome amid Vastra’s confusion. 

“Yes. His name is Mr William Soames. Human man. Very wealthy.” Vastra knew Strax would neither ask for nor approve of the history behind the kidnapping. She would tell him another time, when she had time and energy to explain how exactly their past crimes differed from those they now concerned themselves with. 

******* 

Jenny really had meant to keep track of time. On one journey, before they found more interesting uses for the carriage, she and Vastra had even hypothesised how one would do so. If confined to a dark room with no windows or doors to the outside for a prolonged period of time, how can one count the days? Their conclusions, as well as the memory itself, melted into and floated along with the stream of hallucinatory semi-consciousness that was now all Jenny’s mind could manage, starved and exhausted and bruised as she was. 

The pull of gravity on her hair became Vastra’s hand softly moving it to the side, smiling down at her. Jenny felt like she was talking to her, and she was talking back, and that she was safe. Her body shivered hot and cold which became tepid water, running over her as she lay sideways in the claw-foot tub in their shared bathroom, which melted into the warmth of their shared silken sheets and the mingled coolness and warmth of Vastra pressing against her as she fell asleep. Among her aches was a dull, wet throb on the side of her head which had she been fully conscious, she would have recognised as stale blood. 

Peering in through a small hatch in the door, Mr Soames resolved to tell his men to keep the girl conscious. It was more fun to talk to her, and the rigour with which she had been placed in her restraints was threatening to deprive him of that opportunity. 

“Get her some food and water. Make sure she doesn’t die yet.” Striding past the nodding guards, Mr Soames wet his lips at the thought of closure.


End file.
